The following is an essay that I wrote during an Apologetics class at Big Sky Bible Institute back in the fall of 2007.

The title that I chose for this paper was not phrased the way it is by
accident. I am going to attempt to present evidence for the existence
of the Christian God. I am not going to prove with one hundred percent
certainty that the Christian God exists. I do, however, believe that
the vast majority of evidence truly does point towards the existence of
God.

Cosmological Argument
The first pieces of evidence that I would like to present relate to the
beginning of the universe. First off, if something begins to exist,
there needs to be something that caused it to begin to exist. There is
no reasonable way for you as an atheist to argue against this. It is
completely illogical to expect something to come from nothing. Nothing
is what rocks think about!

Next, there is convincing evidence that the universe began to exist.
For instance, look at the laws of thermodynamics. The first law of
thermodynamics shows that the amount of energy in the world does not
change. The second law of thermodynamics indicates that the amount of
usable energy in the world is being depleted. So, the universe will
eventually run out of energy. This fact indicates that there must have
been a point in time when the universe was all usable energy. So the
universe must have had a beginning.

If the universe had a beginning, and every beginning requires a cause,
it naturally follows that the universe had a cause. You may argue that
the Big Bang was the cause of the universe. But what caused the Big
Bang? You might say, “Well, then who made (or caused) God?” Well, as
we were discussing, everything that had a beginning requires a cause.
However, God never had a beginning; He has always existed. Therefore,
God doesn’t need a cause.

Teleological (Intelligent Design) Argument
The second convincing group of evidence relates to the design of the
universe. If design exists, it is only logical that a designer designed
and made it. If you are walking along a beach, and see the words “Greg
was here” drawn in the sand, you would automatically assume that
someone named Greg had been there and had drawn those letters into the
sand. Why do you think that, though? By evolutionary standards, could
not these words have been eroded into the sand by wave action? No, it
would be completely ludicrous to think that.

But why exactly is it ludicrous to believe that the words “Greg was
here” did not come about by natural causes? The answer: those words
contain information. The problem (for atheists) is that we see
information all around us in nature.

Darwinist Richard Dawkins, who is a professor of zoology at Oxford
University, has stated that the message found in just a single amoeba is
so large that it would fill up 1,000 sets of the Encyclopedia
Britannica! That is a great deal of information.

Furthermore, information must come from a mind. How can Darwinian
evolution explain the information that we see in nature? It simply
cannot! The only logical explanation is that God created it and put it
there!

Moral Law Argument
Finally, I think that the existence of morality gives great evidence for the existence of God.

You as an atheist may state that if there was a God, then there would be
no evil in the world. But here is my question to you: what is evil?
The answer: evil is the deviation from the way things should be. How
then do we know the way things should be? The only way to know the way
things should be is by having a higher standard to compare the world to.
God is that standard.

If there is no God, everything comes down to your personal likes and dislikes.

We have already determined that information cannot appear by natural
means, and as morality is not a physical thing, it cannot be produced by
any means of evolution. So morality cannot come from evolution, and it
also cannot come from within us. If it came from within, what would
stop you from changing your mind about the principle “murder is wrong?”

Some atheists claim that morality comes from society, but that simply
cannot be the case. If society dictated good and evil, then the
Holocaust would have been completely moral, but the work of Martin
Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa would not have been. The German
society was (on the whole) behind Hitler, and his elimination of the
Jews. Does that make it moral to commit genocide? I doubt it! The
majority of society was against Martin Luther King Jr. and black rights
for a very long time. Does that make it immoral to fight racism? I
believe not!

Therefore, morality has to come from someone that is above all people
and societies. That is the only way a real moral law can exist.

Admittedly, there are some atheists that deny that the moral law exists
at all. They are sorely mistaken. If I was to walk up to an atheist
who espoused this sort of thinking and punch him in the jaw and break
it, I think he would probably call the police and report me. But wait a
second: if a moral law does not exist, then what is wrong with me
breaking this atheist’s jaw? Nothing! You see, he really does follow a
moral law.

In conclusion, the existence of the God of the people who call themselves Christians (Side Note:at
least a monotheistic god. Specific evidence for the Christian God above
the gods of other monotheistic religions will be covered in future
posts.) is almost undeniable! The fact that God had to cause the
universe to come into being, the fact that information could only have
come from an intelligent being (God), and the fact that without God
morality would not exist are all incredible evidence for the existence
of God!

A study of world ethics could not possibly be complete without an examination of the Judeo-Christian view.
Since the textbook that we are studying out of does not include a
chapter covering the topic, our professor rightly added readings to
compensate for the horrendous oversight on the author of our text.

The following is the term paper that I wrote for my Epistemology class in the spring of 2012. Since it was a term paper I didn't get the actual draft returned, so that is why there are no remarks from the professor included.

Now, why is God the only thing worth living for? This is a conclusion
that I have been taught, that many of us raised in the Church have been
taught. But ultimately, it is not a thing one can be taught. No, this
must be a conclusion that one comes to on his own. Read these verses:

Greg (mtbgreg1)
is our social media expert and is a regular contributor to the
singletracks blog as a writer and an editor. Greg lives in Dahlonega, GA
in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains where he shreds IMBA
Epics like Bull Mountain regularly. Outside of his singletracks duties,
Greg has served as an ambassador for Airborne Bikes and an intern at
Dirt Rag magazine.

Greg is the social media expert and content editor here at
Tripleblaze.com. Greg enjoys camping but you'll usually find him on a
mountain bike during the day, though he does slow down to hike every now
and then. Wanna get your photo featured as a photo of the day? Better
make friends with Greg.

Panthertown Valley,
located east of Cashiers, North Carolina, is a high-altitude valley (by
East Coast standards) that contains and is ringed by tall mountains
with several massive granite faces. This unique topography has earned it
the title “Yosemite of the East.”

If you are striving to get your photography featured as an outdoor photo of the day here on Tripleblaze.com, there are a few things that you can keep in mind to help increase your chances of being featured:

Today (5/7/12) marks my first-ever feature article published in a print mountain bike magazine! Titled "Tribal Connections," the article is a preview of a number of upcoming mountain bike festivals across the nation. It begins on page 66--be sure to pick up issue #163 of Dirt Rag Magazine and read it!